Travel blog

Dateline July 29, 2013, The Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library

Out to Yorba Linda for the Nixon Library, on the grounds where Nixon was born and where he and Pat were eventually buried. A personal note for John: this was the library of the first president he ever voted for, in 1968, when you still had to be 21 to cast a ballot. The library handles Watergate up front and well, then walks you through the rest of a long, consequential life: Whittier, Duke Law, the South Pacific in World War Two, the Hiss case, the Checkers speech, eight years as Eisenhower's VP, the loss to Kennedy, the loss for Governor of California, and the comeback that landed him in the White House in 1968. The opening to China. The Brezhnev treaties. The Paris Peace Accords. The Hanoi Hilton POW flag. The long, slow post-resignation work of rebuilding. And the 1994 funeral where every living president attended, with Bill Clinton's eulogy doing the difficult work of asking the country to consider an entire life rather than only its lowest point.